A Lady of Quality eBook

The poor lady was so overawed by, and yet so admired,
her charge, that it was piteous to behold.

“She is an arrant fool,” quoth Mistress
Clorinda to her father. “A nice duenna
she would be, forsooth, if she were with a woman who
needed watching. She could be hoodwinked as
it pleased me a dozen times a day. It is I who
am her guard, not she mine! But a beauty must
drag some spy about with her, it seems, and she I
can make to obey me like a spaniel. We can afford
no better, and she is well born, and since I bought
her the purple paduasoy and the new lappets she has
looked well enough to serve.”

“Dunstanwolde nor any man!” she answered.
“There will be no gossip of me. It is
Anne and Barbara thou must look to, Dad, lest their
plain faces lead them to show soft hearts. My
face is my fortune!”

When Sir John Oxon paid his visit to Sir Jeoffry the
days of Mistress Margery were filled with carking
care. The night before he arrived, Mistress
Clorinda called her to her closet and laid upon her
her commands in her own high way. She was under
her woman’s hands, and while her great mantle
of black hair fell over the back of her chair and lay
on the floor, her tirewoman passing the brush over
it, lock by lock, she was at her greatest beauty.
Either she had been angered or pleased, for her cheek
wore a bloom even deeper and richer than usual, and
there was a spark like a diamond under the fringe
of her lashes.

At her first timorous glance at her, Mistress Margery
thought she must have been angered, the spark so burned
in her eyes, and so evident was the light but quick
heave of her bosom; but the next moment it seemed as
if she must be in a pleasant humour, for a little smile
deepened the dimples in the corner of her bowed, full
lips. But quickly she looked up and resumed
her stately air.

“This gentleman who comes to visit to-morrow,”
she said, “Sir John Oxon—­do you know
aught of him?”

“Then it will be well that you should, since
I have commands to lay upon you concerning him,”
said the beauty.

“You do me honour,” said the poor gentlewoman.

Mistress Clorinda looked her straight in the face.

“He is a gentleman from town, the kinsman of
Lord Eldershawe,” she said. “He is
a handsome man, concerning whom many women have been
fools. He chooses to allow it to be said that
he is a conqueror of female hearts and virtue, even
among women of fashion and rank. If this be said
in the town, what may not be said in the country?
He shall wear no such graces here. He chooses
to pay his court to me. He is my father’s
guest and a man of fashion. Let him make as
many fine speeches as he has the will to. I
will listen or not as I choose. I am used to
words. But see that we are not left alone.”